Regimen
by ToEatAPeach
Summary: An original fic in which beauty, family tradition, and hunger all take their toll.


For the women in my family, beauty really is only skin-deep. That's why Mama says we've got to moisturize every day. Carefully and evenly, with smooth, firm strokes down every inch of our bodies—at least, all the exposed parts.

Mama says we have to moisturize once upon waking, once at bedtime, and once during our respective lunch breaks, if we can get away with it. Mama does it at her new job at the bank, and she expects me to do it in the girls' bathroom at my new school, where everyone else is too busy showing off for each other to notice me pull an expensive bottle of skin crème out of my backpack.

We're onto Chanel this year, because apparently a little bit of high-end skincare works just as well as a whole tub of the cheap crap Mama used to buy in bulk at Costco. Mama says experience has taught her that sheer quantity of moisturizer can't replace a few hours of exfoliation, anyway, so we might as well start enjoying small doses of " _the good stuff_."

"It's better this way _,_ Mia _,"_ she says. "I swear it is. Just two hours of pumice in the morning and one at night, then a dollop of crème, three times a day. Easy peasy, no scales!"

Granmama usually hisses her disapproval when Mama says things like that. But Mama just ignores her and blithely keeps on about how a thousand dollars' worth of lotion will do the trick this time. It'll stick, this time. If I follow this new regimen, maybe I won't have any more slip-ups and we won't have to move again.

"How beautiful you could be," Mama often says, "if you would only do what I do."

 _If you'd just try to be what I'm trying to be_ , is what she really means

"Don't you want a boy to take you out on a _real_ date?"Mama asks me. "With flowers and kissing? Don't you want your hand to be soft when he holds it?"

"They aren't meant to be soft,"Granmama always hisses back. "They serve other purposes _."_

"Get with the times," Mama replies, when she's not pretending Granmama doesn't exist. "We don't need the old ways anymore. Not when we have Chanel!"

Mama says a lot of dumb shit, I guess.

* * *

Tonight Mama's sitting at her makeup table, shaking out the last few drops from a $450 bottle of…something. I can't remember if it's the hydration serum, or the one with the deeply penetrating microbeads, or the one with a single rose petal floating in micellar water.

Mama taps the bottom of the bottle three times, until a little droplet of something oily and golden oozes onto her palm. She smears the liquid between her hands, warming it up so that it spreads easier across her throat, where her gular scales are just starting to shimmer back into place.

"Got a date with that Pearson boy tonight?" she asks my reflection in the vanity mirror. I nod from where I'm standing behind her and absently scratch at the skin of my forearm. Mama notices the movement and heaves a big sigh.

She spins around on her vanity stool and sets to rubbing her still-oily hands along my arm, pressing hard, angry scrubs from my wrist to my elbow and gentle, clockwise swipes on the delicate skin below my wrist.

"You're moulting," she chides, giving my other arm a rub for good measure. "Did you moisturize at lunch today?"

I nod again, even though it's a lie. I haven't lotioned my skin in at least two days—not since Cole Pearson asked me out on a date. I haven't sloughed or exfoliated or pumiced, either.

You can't really tell yet that I've stopped following Mama's beauty regimen. I'm a lot younger than Mama and _ages_ younger than Granmama, so my scales are barely visible right now. In the nighttime shadows, they could almost be a trick of the light. Body glitter or highlighting powder, maybe, if you don't know what you're looking for.

Cole Pearson definitely doesn't know what he's looking for.

"He seems nice," Mama says, almost as if she can sense the direction of my thoughts. She finishes with my arms and spins back around, away from me. "He has pretty eyes."

She meets my gaze again in the mirror for confirmation. I grin. "Pretty mouth, too," I agree.

Mama smiles back. From the way her eyes crinkle in the corners, warm and sly, I can tell she thinks we're having a moment—we're being _conspiratorial_.

We are, I guess, but not for the reasons Mama thinks. She wouldn't approve of what I want to do to Cole Pearson. But Granmama sure would.

"Speaking of Cole." I lean forward to give Mama a quick peck on her crown of bright red hair. "I gotta go. He's meeting me outside the movie theater in about twenty minutes."

Mama frowns in the mirror. "He's not picking you up?"

"Nah." I shrug and try very hard to suppress another grin—it'll look way too predatory this time. "I told Cole I'd just meet him there. That way I don't have to rely on him to get home, if the date flames out."

"Flames out," Mama scoffs, but her gaze is already drifting down to her vast array of potions and salves. "It won't _flame out_ , Mia. Not with the way you say his name."

I can't help the slight twitch at the corner of my lips. "And how is that, Mama?"

" _Cole_ ," she sighs dreamily. "Cole, Cole, _Cole_."

Inside, I feel nothing like what her flirty imitation suggests. But I'm sure as hell not going to tell her that.

"Let your mother have her fun," Granmama advised me a long time ago, when we first moved to the New World. "Let her pretend like we're something we aren't, if that's what she wants. But you should be what you are, Mia. Do what we were created to do."

Granmama remembers the dawntimes, when her name was still Echidna—the days of Hera and Zeus, and the wailing of children. She remembers when Mama was created, and when I was, and she can tell me stories about a time when beauty wasn't purchased but won over with blood and feasting and fear. A time when our kind had _only_ scales and charms and jaws that could unhinge to devour the whole damned world, if we wanted it badly enough.

Now Mama has Chanel and a job and the occasional boyfriend, whenever we settle in a town long enough for her to meet people. Mama has delusion and hope and a daily skincare regimen that lasts a minimum of six hours. Mama likes faking human. She says humans are interesting. Says that they're worth getting to know, outside of the feast. She says they're _beautiful_.

Mama says a lot of dumb shit.

As I leave our house tonight—a tiny clapboard rental on the edge of town with a wide front porch and two bedrooms that will surely be empty by tomorrow afternoon—I give an extra foot-stomp of _hello_ upon the porch floorboards. Granmama thumps back a _hello_ from underneath.

These days, she isn't in the hunting business. She just curls up somewhere warm and dry each time we move, content to wait out Mama's millionth attempt to make us into something we're not.

Tonight, Granmama adds an extra rattle of approval to go along with the thump. Maybe it's because she can taste the scent of my skin on the night air, free of serums or scrubs or crèmes. Maybe she can hear the scratch of my nails against the ventral scales just starting to reemerge on my neck as I move across the porch.

Maybe she can sense just how beautiful I truly am. How much more beautiful I'll be, once I've made quick work of Cole Pearson.

"Humans are so lovely," Mama always argues. "Humanity's worth being a part of, worth knowing."

"Our kind?" Granmama always counters. "We're at our most beautiful when we're satiated."

I guess, when it comes down to it, I agree more with Granmama.

After all, she says a lot of smart shit.


End file.
